THE Australian diving duo of Sharleen Stratton and Anabelle Smith have missed out on a medal in the women's synchronised three metre springboard.

The pair finished in fifth place behind the dominant Chinese, United States and Canada.

Stratton and Smith were always fighting for a medal berth after scores of 49.20, 49.20 and 70.20 in the first three rounds left them outside the medal places.

Needing something special to pull themselves back into the contention, the Australians opted to roll the dice with a high degree of difficulty dive.

However, the judges were unimpressed with the duo's efforts, scoring the dive a 69.75 and leaving Stratton and Smith languishing down the field.

But the judges were highly impressed with the Chinese duo of Zi He and Minxia Wu, the pair blitzing the field with a number of high quality of dives and taking home the gold with a combined score of 346.20.